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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1: Difference between revisions

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*[[Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Initiation of the practice]]
*[[Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Initiation of the practice]]
*{{AuthorPublisherResponse}} The publisher responded by claiming that the reviewer of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' offers no documentation for evidence of a marriage between Joseph and Fanny Alger in Kirtland. See: [http://www.signaturebooks.com/pluralmarriage.htm?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234200952&sr=1-1 Joseph Smith Had "Conjugal Relations" with Eight Plural Wives, Says FARMS], ''Signature Books'' web site, March 25, 2009.
*{{AuthorPublisherResponse}} The publisher responded by claiming that the reviewer of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' offers no documentation for evidence of a marriage between Joseph and Fanny Alger in Kirtland. See: [http://www.signaturebooks.com/pluralmarriage.htm?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234200952&sr=1-1 Joseph Smith Had "Conjugal Relations" with Eight Plural Wives, Says FARMS], ''Signature Books'' web site, March 25, 2009.
*The publisher's response continues to ignore the Hancock testimony. The review states that the book's author "virtually ignores, however, the data that [Todd] Compton clearly considers the most important—the Mosiah Hancock autobiography, in which Hancock reports that "Father gave her [Fanny] to Joseph repeating the Ceremony as Joseph repeated to him." {{ref|hancock1}}
*The publisher's response continues to ignore the Hancock testimony. The review states that the book's author "virtually ignores, however, the data that [Todd] Compton clearly considers the most important—the Mosiah Hancock autobiography, in which Hancock reports that "Father gave her [Fanny] to Joseph repeating the Ceremony as Joseph repeated to him." <ref>Mosiah F. Hancock, Autobiography, MS 570, LDS Church Archives, 61–62; Todd Compton, "Fanny Alger Smith Custer: Mormonism's First Plural Wife?" Journal of Mormon History 22/1 (Spring 1996): 189–90. The author of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' says only (in a footnote) that "Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 33, 646, draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833" (p. 41 n. 90).</ref>
|authorsources=
|authorsources=
*{{HistoricalError}}
*{{HistoricalError}}
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*The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
*The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
|response=
|response=
*{{InternalContradiction|p. xv: Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town".  Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago.{{ref|p2fn2}}}}
*{{InternalContradiction|p. xv: Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town".  Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago. <ref>{{MormonExperience|pages=69}}</ref>}}
|authorsources=
|authorsources=
*No source provided.
*No source provided.
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*Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
*Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
|response=
|response=
*The author ignores the many problems which have been pointed out with Quinn's "magick" argument.  Chief among these is that (as even Quinn admits), "according to the standard contemporary interpretations of astrology, Joseph was born under Saturn, not Jupiter."  Quinn's only source for this claim is an 1870 book which used an alternative means of performing such calculation.  Joseph can hardly have been aware of a method outlined nearly 50 years later.{{ref|hamblin1}}  The present author acknowledges or treats none of these issues.
*The author ignores the many problems which have been pointed out with Quinn's "magick" argument.  Chief among these is that (as even Quinn admits), "according to the standard contemporary interpretations of astrology, Joseph was born under Saturn, not Jupiter."  Quinn's only source for this claim is an 1870 book which used an alternative means of performing such calculation.  Joseph can hardly have been aware of a method outlined nearly 50 years later. <ref>{{FR-12-2-16}}</ref> The present author acknowledges or treats none of these issues.
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic|Joseph Smith and "magick"]]
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic|Joseph Smith and "magick"]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]
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*The author states that in 1831 Joseph Smith "sanctioned the first breach in marriage mores. It occurred in Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women. Polygamy may have been on his mind…."
*The author states that in 1831 Joseph Smith "sanctioned the first breach in marriage mores. It occurred in Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women. Polygamy may have been on his mind…."
|response=
|response=
* There is no evidence that married men understood that Joseph was discussing polygamy until at least three years later.{{ref|wwphelps.1}}  
* There is no evidence that married men understood that Joseph was discussing polygamy until at least three years later. <ref> W.W. Phelps, Letter to Brigham Young, 1861, original in Church Archives, emphasis in original; cited by B. Carmon Hardy, ''Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise'', Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier (Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007), 36–37.</ref>  
*[[Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage]]
*[[Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
Line 486: Line 486:
*The author ignores that many (if not most/all) of these scriptures have a symbolic role, as illustrated in Joseph's change discussed above (though the author apparently tries to undercut that impression).  Richard L. Bushman, LDS author of a recent biography of Joseph Smith, writes:
*The author ignores that many (if not most/all) of these scriptures have a symbolic role, as illustrated in Joseph's change discussed above (though the author apparently tries to undercut that impression).  Richard L. Bushman, LDS author of a recent biography of Joseph Smith, writes:


:...[T]he fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians' place in world history, assigning them to a more glorious future than modern American whites.... Lamanite degradation is not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, "they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them." ({{s||Alma|23|18}}) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain. {{ref|bushman1}}
:...[T]he fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians' place in world history, assigning them to a more glorious future than modern American whites.... Lamanite degradation is not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, "they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them." ({{s||Alma|23|18}}) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain. <ref>{{RSR1|start=99}}</ref>
*[[../../Use_of_sources#.22Skin_color_important_in_other_LDS_scriptures.22|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]
*[[../../Use_of_sources#.22Skin_color_important_in_other_LDS_scriptures.22|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]
*[[Lamanite curse]]
*[[Lamanite curse]]
Line 792: Line 792:
}}
}}


=={{Endnotes label}}==
== ==
#{{note|hancock1}}Mosiah F. Hancock, Autobiography, MS 570, LDS Church Archives, 61–62; Todd Compton, "Fanny Alger Smith Custer: Mormonism's First Plural Wife?" Journal of Mormon History 22/1 (Spring 1996): 189–90. The author of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' says only (in a footnote) that "Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 33, 646, draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833" (p. 41 n. 90).
{{Endnotes label}}
#{{note|p2fn2}} {{MormonExperience|pages=69}}
 
#{{note|hamblin1}} {{FR-12-2-16}}
<references/>
#{{note|wwphelps.1}} W.W. Phelps, Letter to Brigham Young, 1861, original in Church Archives, emphasis in original; cited by B. Carmon Hardy, ''Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise'', Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier (Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007), 36–37.
#{{note|bushman1}}{{RSR1|start=99}}


=Further reading=
{{FAIRAnalysisWiki}}
{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}
{{Articles Footer 1}} {{Articles Footer 2}} {{Articles Footer 3}} {{Articles Footer 4}} {{Articles Footer 5}} {{Articles Footer 6}} {{Articles Footer 7}} {{Articles Footer 8}} {{Articles Footer 9}} {{Articles Footer 10}}


[[fr:Specific works/Nauvoo Polygamy/Index/Chapter 1]]
[[fr:Specific works/Nauvoo Polygamy/Index/Chapter 1]]

Revision as of 01:05, 6 June 2014

Response to claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)


Preface
A work by author: George D. Smith
 Chapter 1 (pp. 26-51)

1

Claim
  • The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith."

Author's source(s)
  •  History unclear or in error
  • No source provided.
Ignoring Hancock autobiography (edit) Response
  • The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger.
  • Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Initiation of the practice
  •  The author or publisher responds: The publisher responded by claiming that the reviewer of Nauvoo Polygamy offers no documentation for evidence of a marriage between Joseph and Fanny Alger in Kirtland. See: Joseph Smith Had "Conjugal Relations" with Eight Plural Wives, Says FARMS, Signature Books web site, March 25, 2009.
  • The publisher's response continues to ignore the Hancock testimony. The review states that the book's author "virtually ignores, however, the data that [Todd] Compton clearly considers the most important—the Mosiah Hancock autobiography, in which Hancock reports that "Father gave her [Fanny] to Joseph repeating the Ceremony as Joseph repeated to him." [1]

1n1

Claim
  • The author dismisses a marriage with Fanny Alder by simply stating that "[t]here is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
  •  History unclear or in error
Ignoring Hancock autobiography (edit) Response

1

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet"?

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Womanizing & romance (edit) Response

1

Claim
  • It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Ages of wives (edit)
  • See also ch. Preface: ix
  • See also ch. 1: 1, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 44
  • See also ch. 2: 53
  • See also ch. 2a: 142-143
  • See also ch. 3: 198
  • See also ch. 6: 408
Response

2

Claim
  • The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  •  Internal contradiction: p. xv: Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town". Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago. [2]

2

Claim
It is claimed that "[n]o one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent."

Author's source(s)

  • No source provided.

Response

  • The author leaves unmentioned that many Christians have always seen the end as imminent, and that Joseph's view was more restrained and pragmatic than most of the sects of the day. See: Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table," Brigham Young University Studies 3 no. 3 (1961), 55–66. off-site


2

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "With an acquisitive eye on neighboring lands and the will to triumph over older settlers through political bloc voting, Joseph's behavior concerned some of the longtime Illinoisans who lived around the Saints."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Bloc voting (edit)
  • See also ch. 1: 2
  • See also ch. 2: 68
  • See also ch. 4: 292–293
See NOTE on bloc voting Response

2

Claim
  • "Now fear of [the Mormons'] city-wide militia, use of local petitions of habeas corpus to dismiss state warrants, and rumors of a 'plurality of wives' had put citizens on edge."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Nauvoo city charter (edit)
  • See also ch. 1: 2
  • See also ch. 2a: 139
  • See also ch. 3: 160, 161, and 163
Response
  • The author fails to tell us that
  1. the Mormons were equally (or more) afraid, having been driven by state militias from two states;
  2. their use of habeas corpus had contemporary case law and legal theory on their side;
  3. dislike for the Mormons was also a strong political motivation in their enemies.

2

Claim
  • The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  •  History unclear or in error It is not clear what "uneasy circumstances" the author refers to. The Mormons were not driven from New York, but immigrated to Kirtland, Ohio at Joseph's direction.

3

Claim
  • The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  •  History unclear or in error Polygamy was unpracticed by anyone but Joseph Smith prior to Nauvoo. Polygamy had nothing to do with Mormons moving from New York. The need to flee Missouri likewise had little to do with plural marriage. Joseph's marriage to Fanny Alger was one factor among many causing problems in Ohio (though the financial problems and collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society were probably more significant).

3

Claim
  • It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman.

Author's source(s)
  • Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833; Revised States of the State of Illinois, 1845, secs 121, 122.
Response

3-4

Claim
  • The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Hiding polygamy (edit)
  • See also ch. 1: 3-4 and 51
  • See also ch. 4: 247
Response

4

Claim
  • The inner circle of plural marriage "would lose one of its key members in 1842 when John C. Bennett quarreled with Smith and then left."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
John C. Bennett (edit) Response
  • There is no evidence that Bennett was ever sanctioned to practice plural marriage. He was never part of the Quorum of the Anointed who received the full temple endowment.
  • John C. Bennett

5

Claim
  • The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Censorship of Church History (edit) Response

5

Claim
  • The author claims that Danel Bachman and Ron Esplin's Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry on plural marriage only "briefly mention[s] the 'rumors' of plural marriage in the 1830s and 1840s but only obliquely refer[s] to the teaching [of] new marriage and family arrangements."

Author's source(s)
  • "Plural Marriage", Encyclopedia of Mormonism
  • Text: "Rumors of plural marriage among the members of the Church in the 1830's and 1840's led to persecution, and the public announcement of the practice after August 29, 1852, in Utah gave enemies a potent weapon to fan public hostility against the Church.
Response

6

Claim
  • It is claimed that Joseph revealed "God's rule" that "no one can reject [polygamy] and enter into my glory" (D&C 132, 51, 52, 54).

Author's source(s)
Necessary for salvation? (edit)
  • See also ch. Preface: xiv
  • See also ch. 1: 6
  • See also ch. 2: 55
  • See also ch. 6: 356
Response

6

Claim
  • It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Predicting 2nd Coming (edit)
  • See also ch. 1: 6 and 9
  • See also ch. 8: 535
Response

7

Claim
  • It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick..."

Author's source(s)
  • Thomas Dick, The Philosophy of a Future State, 2d. American ed. (Brookfield, Mass: n.p., 1830); quoted in LDS Messenger and Advocate 3 (Dec 1836): 423-25.
Environmental explanations (edit) Response

7

Claim
  • The author states that Joseph "had already proven his own mettle among God's elect when he mastered the use of magic stones and 'translated' the Book of Mormon."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

8

Claim
  • It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Environmental explanations (edit) Response

9

Claim
  • "Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  • How does The author know this? How frequently did other preachers use apocalyptic imagery and themes? Was their percentage of such uses equal to or greater than Joseph's usage?
  • Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table," Brigham Young University Studies 3 no. 3 (1961), 55–66. off-site (Discusses many contrasts between Joseph and the millenialist sects of his day, from both LDS and non-LDS historians of religion.)
  • Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions

9

Claim
  • The author speculates that Joseph was "understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world," but that he knew that "our redemption draweth near."

Author's source(s)
  • Jesse, 306
Predicting 2nd Coming (edit)
  • See also ch. 1: 6 and 9
  • See also ch. 8: 535
Response

10

Claim
  • On Joshua the Jewish minister [Robert Matthews]: "Smith found him credible enough to converse with from 11:00 a.m. until evening when Smith invited him to stay for dinner." "Without objection from Smith, Matthias asserted: 'The silence spoken of by John the Revelator…is between 1830 & 1851…."

Author's source(s)
  • Jesse, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:68–73, 568–69.
Response

11

Claim
  • Robert Matthews (see above) "advocated what he called a 'community of property and of wives,' in a more 'spiritual generation.' Mormons avoided the idiom but not the practice." "…Mormon communal practices extended to property as well as to marriage."

Author's source(s)
  • Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.
Response

11

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848."

Author's source(s)
  • Communist Manifesto (1848; New York: Bantam, 1992).
Response

12

Claim
  •  Author's quote: Polygamy was evidently on Smith's mind even before founding the Mormon Church, if that can be deduced from the marriage formula inscribed in the Book of Mormon.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit) Response

12

Claim
  • Yet again the author mentions "elopement," when he notes that the Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Emma and Joseph Eloped (edit)
  • See also ch. Preface: xiv
  • See also ch. 1: 12
Response

12

Claim
  • Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Response

12

Claim
  • It is noted that "[e]ach year at the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Response

12n29

Claim
  • Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"

Author's source(s)
Response

13

Claim
  • Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger."

Author's source(s)
  • Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 1 [No. 5] (Feb 1835): 79.
  • The quote is incorrect in Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 125, 134, which the author appears to be quoting without checking Quinn's primary source for accuracy.
Response

13

Claim
  • Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth."

Author's source(s)
  • Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 1 (Feb 1835): 79.
  • CITATION is in ERROR. He is quoting from Quinn, Early Mormonism, 125, 134 & Vogel, Indian Origins, 14–15.
  • Actual quote is found in: Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 2/1 (October 1835): 197.
Response

13-14

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "Smith elaborated this idea to 'raise up seed' [in Jacob 2:30] with the signal might [sic] be given again and polygamy would be re-introduced….

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit) Response

14

Claim
  • The author states that in 1831 Joseph Smith "sanctioned the first breach in marriage mores. It occurred in Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women. Polygamy may have been on his mind…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

14

Claim
  •  Author's quote: …W.W. Phelps reported on the prophet's instructions in all their antebellum racism. Through intermarriage, Smith said, the Indians would become white, delightsome, and just" and fulfill the Book of Mormon prophecy that 'the scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white [pure] and delightsome people."

Author's source(s)
  • W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, Aug. 12, 1861, LDS Archives.
Response

14n34

Claim
  • It is noted that the 1840 Book of Mormon substituted the word 'pure' for 'white,' and that the wording "reverted back to "white" again in the English 1841 and later foreign editions, then became 'pure' again in 1981."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

14n34

Claim
  • The author states that "other passages in the Book of Mormon still refer to 'white' as 'delightsome' and a 'skin of blackness' as a 'curse' (2 Ne. 5; Jacob 3:5, 8-10; Alma 3-6-9; 3 Ne. 2:14-15; Morm. 5:15)."

Author's source(s)
  • N/A
Response
  • The author ignores that many (if not most/all) of these scriptures have a symbolic role, as illustrated in Joseph's change discussed above (though the author apparently tries to undercut that impression). Richard L. Bushman, LDS author of a recent biography of Joseph Smith, writes:
...[T]he fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians' place in world history, assigning them to a more glorious future than modern American whites.... Lamanite degradation is not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, "they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them." (Alma 23꞉18) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain. [5]

14n34

Claim
  • The author claims that skin color was important in LDS scriptures, and notes that "blacks of African ancestry were denied full participation in the church until 1978."

Author's source(s)
  • N/A
Response

14n34

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "Interestingly, the rhetoric underlying the theology may have resulted from 1830s Mormons trying to convince their neighbors in the slave state of Missouri that they were not abolitionists."

Author's source(s)
  • Campbell, "'White' or 'Pure': Five Vignettes," Dialogue 29 (Winter 1996) 119-120
  • Lester E. Bush Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, Neither White nor Black (SLC, Signature Books, 1994).
Response

15

Claim
  • Ezra Booth claimed that the mission to the Lamanites was to secure a "matrimonial alliance with the natives." The author notes that the missionaries "did not seem successful in this area."

Author's source(s)
  • Deseret News (20 May 1886); Ezra Booth letter, Ohio Star, (8 Dec 1831).
Response

15

Claim
  • The author speculates that "One wonders when Emma Smith might have first suspected that her husband was contemplating plural marriage…As Emma regarded her handsome spouse, what in Joseph's youthful experiences may have suggested the unusual family arrangements that were to follow?"

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

15

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "We know Joseph often stayed overnight on visits with other families. Was Emma aware that later marriages would develop out of these family visits among their close friends? Could she have seen this coming—the injunction to enter into 'celestial marriage'?"

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

15-16

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "An examination of Smith's adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination."

Author's source(s)
Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit) Response
Or, it might not. As it turns out, it isn't.

16-20

Claim
  • The author refers to the "vices and follies of youth…."

Author's source(s)
Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit) Response

19-20

Claim
  • William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures."

Author's source(s)
Response
The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.

20

Claim
  • Joseph is claimed to have cut "a sheep's throat [and] led [it] around a circle while bleeding," in order to "appease the evil spirit."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided, but is from William Stafford affidavit in Howe.
Response

20

Claim
  • It is claimed that Joseph "'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat,'…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided, but is from Henry Harris affidavit in Howe.
Response

21

Claim
  • The author states that Joseph's 1842 letter to John Wentworth "left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned. He had come effectively to de-emphasize the feelings of sin and guilt he had once experienced."

Author's source(s)
  • History of the Church 4:535–41
  • Jesse, Writings of Joseph Smith, 241–248.
Womanizing & romance (edit) Response
The author again presumes that Joseph's works referred to "sinful thoughts," which he has tried to tie to chastity.

21

Claim
  • The author implies that Joseph "took an interest in polygamy at an early period, beyond what we read in his autobiographies or in the Book of Mormon."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Womanizing & romance (edit) Response

21

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "What was new about this [1838] account [of Moroni's visit] was that this time the 1823 angelic announcement was preceded by an 1820 'First Vision,' which included not just 'personages' or 'angels' but a visitation by the God of heaven—'The Father and The Son.'"

Author's source(s)
  • No sources provided.
Response

22

Claim
  • Lucy Mack Smith said in her history that "in the course of our evening conversation[,] Joseph would give us some of the most ammusing [sic in Smith] recitals…[and] describe the ancient inhabitants of this [American] continent their dress their manner of traveling the animals which they rode."

Author's source(s)
  • Anderson, Lucy's Book, 329, 345.
Response

22

Claim
  • It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Womanizing & romance (edit) Response

22

Claim
  • The book notes that in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Fanny Alger (edit) Ages of wives (edit)
  • See also ch. Preface: ix
  • See also ch. 1: 1, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 44
  • See also ch. 2: 53
  • See also ch. 2a: 142-143
  • See also ch. 3: 198
  • See also ch. 6: 408
Response
  • The date is not at all sure. The evidence dates it to either 1833 or 1835; others have not argued for 1832 specifically, and the author provides no evidence or argument for this early date.

22

Claim
  • The author states that "Emma never indicated that her husband had told her anything specifically about his experiences prior to their marriage or the details of his involvement with other women, although she did know about Fanny Alger."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Fanny Alger (edit) Response

22

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

22

Claim
  • The author speculates that "Joseph and Emma had been bound by treasure magic from their first meeting in 1825, because Joseph…[came] to help Josiah Stowell located buried treasure [and] boarded with Emma's father."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided
Response

22

Claim
  • The author speculates that "[i]t was in a mysterious atmosphere of imaginative lore and a mix of theology and magic that Joseph and Emma eloped."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

23

Claim
  • The author speculates that "[t]he treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

25

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "What Joseph failed to explain in this [1838] version [of his history of money digging] was the apparent continuum from treasure seeking to finding gold plates or the similar modus operandi in placing a 'seer stone' in a hat…"

Author's source(s)
  • Van Wagoner and Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing,' Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (Summer 1982): 2:50 [sic];
  • George D. Smith, "Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon," Free Inquiry 4 (Winter 1983-84): 27n2.
Response

25

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "It is also true that Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  • The point of Joseph's 1838 account was not to give extensive details on his youth or past, but to provide the key events of the restoration as he understood them.
  • Joseph Smith/Money digging

25

Claim
  • The Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
  •  History unclear or in error
Response

Notes


  1. ↑ Mosiah F. Hancock, Autobiography, MS 570, LDS Church Archives, 61–62; Todd Compton, "Fanny Alger Smith Custer: Mormonism's First Plural Wife?" Journal of Mormon History 22/1 (Spring 1996): 189–90. The author of Nauvoo Polygamy says only (in a footnote) that "Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 33, 646, draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833" (p. 41 n. 90).
  2. ↑ Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House/University of Illinois Press, [1979] 1992), 69. ISBN 0252062361. off-site
  3. ↑ William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]
  4. ↑ W.W. Phelps, Letter to Brigham Young, 1861, original in Church Archives, emphasis in original; cited by B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise, Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier (Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007), 36–37.
  5. ↑ Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 99.
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